Californian Son
by LivTC
Summary: AU: Back before he moved, Dave Strider and Karkat Vantas were (usually) best friends. However, when Karkat flies out from Ohio to see Strider after six months, he's shocked to see how much his bro has changed - with the new car, the new best friend, and the new need to leave Karkat behind every chance he gets, fighting is inevitable.
1. It's not right,

**AN: I labeled this "Romance" because there is smut in a later chapter, but I also labeled it "Angst" because it's mostly Dave and Karkat fighting. This story is not exactly candlelit dinners and holding hands on the beach, just to be clear.**

**If this doesn't deter you, then I hope you enjoy!**

The pink and blue horizon didn't inch any closer as they sped down the empty road, chasing hilltops and ducking into valleys, hiding briefly from the setting California sun only to come back up again like the convertible needed the light like the passengers inside needed air. Hair whipping around Karkat's head, into his face, and occasionally going around his borrowed sunglasses and stabbing his hidden eyes, he noticed, for the umpteenth time, that while he'd always been at ends with Dave, this felt different.

As they came out of the shade, he took in a deep breath as the sun bathed the car. He tried to let this new air settle his nerves and agitations, and for a moment, it worked. He felt calmer, like the situations that landed him in the car, next to his best friend, were nonexistent, or, at the least, not important.

"So whatcha think, Karkat?" a voice said into his ear, connecting with the wind and startling him.

"Fuck, John!" he yelled in surprise, whipping around, ready to leap into the back seat and deliver some serious pain in the form of a very well-placed black eye.

"Hey," a much deeper voice said from the driver's seat. "I will turn this car around."

With one last snarl at John, Karkat spun back, groaning – and maybe blushing. He could hear John giggling with delight behind him. "Shut up," he muttered, but his voice got caught in the wind.

This had definitely changed. The convertible was new of course, as was the asshole in the back seat, but Karkat knew from the tense silence that hung around the front of the car that something else was different; something deeper than moving across the country and quickly gaining fame and fortune.

Suddenly, John was back in Karkat's space, hands on the shoulders of his seat and head by his own. A large part of Karkat wanted to reach around and shove the idiot backwards, but he resisted, knowing he'd likely get scolded again, like some dumb kid.

John said, "Hey, Dave, I've been meaning to ask; why've you still got your old plates on?"

The driver shrugged, fingers tapping lightly on his steering wheel, like he'd break it if he hit it as hard as he used to in his old sedan. "Just want to keep the one I have. Suppose I should make it my vanity plate, instead."

"Why?" John scoffed. "Soft on Ohio, Davey?"

Karkat rolled his eyes so violently they almost fell right out of his skull. Dave smirked beside him, relieving just a bit of tension that had been picked up along with Karkat and his backpack at the airport. "Piss off, Egbert," Dave said.

Karkat folded his arms over his chest and looked to his right, smiling just slightly, feeling vindicated, as he looked off the cliff and to the beach they were passing. He may have just arrived, but he was sure there wasn't a single other place in this godforsaken state that screamed "California" as loud as this one. The waves beneath them crashed into the beach, making the crowd, out despite the growing darkness, scream with delight. The people in the crowd all looked like ants from their position, as high up as they were.

John, arms now totally wrapped around the head of Karkat's seat and likely noticing the passenger's gaze, asked, "You like the beach?"

Disgusted with his far-too-casual closeness, Karkat looked to Dave, saying, "Did it have to be red, Strider?"

"The car?" he responded, not taking his eyes off the winding road. "You got a problem with it?

Karkat shrugged, moving his head in a calculated way in order to get John out of his vision. "It's tacky."

"Tacky?" John repeated, mocking him. "It's classic!"

"Driving a red convertible around a California hillside that just so happens to overlook a California beach is cliched at best," Karkat told Dave.

"Hey," Dave responded, light aggression and annoyance in his voice, "as soon as you think of something you'd rather be doing, you let me know."

Karkat frowned, huffing at himself and shifting awkwardly. "I'm not trying to upset you."

"Yeah."

Only a few seconds of silence could pass before John asked, "So how d'you guys know each other, again?"

"We were neighbors," Dave said, rolling his shoulders (left bare by his tank top) back. Karkat could tell he wasn't as thin and lanky as he had been just a few months ago; Californian fame must've forced him to beef up. "Has the neighborhood fallen to shit yet, Karkat?"

"You wish," the Ohio resident muttered, rolling his eyes. "It's not like you ever left your damn house, anyway. The only thing different is the asshole that moved in."

"Wait," John said, smile apparent in his voice; Karkat was still doing his best to avoid looking at him, "are you telling me Dave wasn't Mr. Cool McGuy back home?"

"Of course I was," Dave said, puffing out his chest and shaking his blonde hair away from his sunglasses, as if to display his ever-existing coolness. "I'm like the largest, coldest, ship-sinking-est iceberg up in Antarctica."

Karkat scoffed, eyes looking up at first and then to the perfectly clean dashboard; Dave's old car's used to have apple juice bottles just covering it, often falling into the passenger's seat, or worse, lap. "Yeah, okay."

John managed to move even closer to the front. "Seriously?!" he laughed, falling backwards before springing right back up in joy. "Oh, that's awesome! What was he like?"

Karkat glanced to Dave, who was tense, and the shorter smiled. Turning just slightly to meet John's blue eyes, he said monotonously, like he was just stating facts, "Total loner. He had maybe four or five friends, and he didn't date until he was sixteen, and even then, it was just Terezi–"

"Terezi?!" John exclaimed, jumping a bit, far too enthusiastic, "I've heard about her! He's still–"

Dave interrupted, "No, there is no 'just Terezi'."

"He's still got a thing for her," John finished, smile so wide his cheeks pushed up his glasses. He didn't seem to notice Karkat's smile crack at the corners, and for a second, Karkat even tried to convince himself that they hadn't.

"There's nothing wrong with that, man," Dave said, shaking his head. "Terezi was cool. How is she, Karkat?"

Karkat shrugged as they fell into another valley, now long past the beach and once again covered by shade. "Just Terezi, I guess. I think she has a thing with Gamzee. I haven't seen either for a while."

Dave's face twisted under his glasses. "Gamzee?"

"Wasn't he the clown?" John asked.

"Juggalo, yeah," Karkat corrected, as if it really fucking mattered. He mentally punched himself. "They started hanging out a lot a month after you left, and guess who is no longer invited to their bullshit movie nights?"

"You do have a pretty shit attitude for a movie club," Dave noted, moving a finger to turn up the music, just a number or two, but nothing to make a real difference. "Sure you weren't just kicked out?"

"No, because, apparently, I'm also a pretty shit third wheel," he said, glancing first at Dave, and then at John. He seemed oblivious. This was not surprising.

"Are we taking Karkat to Jade's party?" John asked, apparently bored with the talk of Ohio.

Karkat groaned, banging the back of his head against the black leather of his seat, and also, John's arm, "Oh, God, no. No parties."

"What?!" John whined, moving his appendage out of the way, if only reflexively. "No parties?!"

Dave likely rolled his eyes, but Karkat couldn't tell for sure. "Yes, parties. I already promised Jade I'd go."

"Dave, I just got off a plane, and–" Karkat complained.

John jumped in, both verbally and physically (he just couldn't seem to get close enough), "It'll be fun! You can meet all of Dave's new friends!"

Karkat's entire face fell into utter annoyance. Friends? Dave had been there all of six months, and the kid who never left his house in nineteen years had _multiple_ _friends_? Bullshit. Complete nonsense.

"You'd like Jade," Dave said. Karkat couldn't tell if he was lying or not.

The brunette man bit his lip in thought, looking off his shoulder again and to the sunset. For as much as he didn't want to go, and for as much as he hated parties populated by strangers, he sort of did want to meet these "friends"; they likely didn't know about the Smuppets, or the swords in the old fridge, so Karkat had a lot to catch them up on.

"When does it start?"

John mumbled, pulling out his phone, "Let me check..."

"Probably a while ago," Dave answered, cracking his neck. "Jade starts early."

"An hour ago!" John declared a few minutes later, proud, like he'd braved the wilderness to get the answer. "Fashionably late."

"Can I at least drop my stuff off?" Karkat begged, stalling, either not wanting to go, or just wanting to wait long enough to see the beautiful California sunset.


	2. but it's now

The trip to the house (no, sorry, giant ass fucking mansion) had been quick; they parked the car, listened to John whine about wanting to keep his lazy ass in the car, convinced John to leave the car, got to the giant front door of the giant house, gave Karkat's singular bag to the butler, and then left. He didn't even get to wipe his feet on the likely very expensive doormat.

The trip to Jade's house was equally as fast. Apparently, she lived in the same gated community as the Striders, but you wouldn't know that for how amazingly far away from each other each house was. You could fit a small galaxy into everyone's lawn, and none of the property owner's would even notice.

Jade's house was just as glamorous as Dave's – at least from the outside, as that was all Karkat had seen of either. The columns on the porch were taller than his own house back on Ohio, and the building reached three floors in some areas, and likely four in places he couldn't see. Dormers frequently popped out of the roof, but likely for style rather than space. Both houses were neutral colors, and textured – like that Mexican stuff he didn't remember the name of. Stucco, maybe?

Either way, these big, luxurious houses with their expansive, sprawling lawns looked nothing like the one-story, blue, rundown shack Dave grew up in, and that filled Karkat with a bit of jealous anger. He really needed some pot; that always mellowed him out.

Gamzee wasn't the best role model.

Before Karkat knew it, the two other men were out of the car, feet crossing the overdone stone walkway. He tried to stay close, but Dave and John had much longer legs. Eventually, they landed squarely in front of a behemoth door that looked down at them like a cyclops, eye of a knocker, about to consume them whole. Dave rang the doorbell before opening the door, revealing the insides of the monster: the falling darkness outside amplified the flashing bright lights, likely coming from a fancy lighting rig-thing, only to shine down on a bunch of barely-of-age kids who were very clearly drunk as absolute fuck. Even from outside, Karkat could smell pizza mixed with sweat mixed with sex, and he wondered for a moment if the sweet, bright-eyed girl who he'd been told owned the place had any idea what was going on just upstairs.

Dave walked in without hesitating, and for the first time, Karkat noticed he was still wearing his sunglasses. He hadn't questioned it in the car – he thought Dave was just using them as goggles to protect against his long blonde hair, but seeing him walk into a dark house with them on just added to Karkat's rage. What a douchebag.

"Follow me, Karkat," John offered, stepping inside and smiling over his shoulder. Karkat glared in return, but did as the black-haired man said, silently praying that he wouldn't get felt up by any drunk party-goers. His feet hit dark wooden floors as John reached behind and grabbed his wrist, pulling him straight into the crowd that had gathered in the foyer. The lights pulsed, and he noticed that they were coming from not one, but three small, tacky disco balls that had been duct taped to the walls.

"You'd think these rich fucks would have a bigger party budget," Karkat muttered bitterly to himself, drowned out by the music and shouts of those around him.

On their way to wherever the fuck they were going, John managed to dodge each and every drunk, sweaty dancer, but Karkat was not as lucky. Both men and women rubbed up against him, most accidentally, but at least three or four on purpose, all laughing but not excusing themselves, like they were fucking classless buffoons, and not the prissy little country club members he'd expected them to be. As the men made their way through a few more crowded rooms, Karkat noticed that he hadn't seen an single sweatervest nor something as simple as a nice button-up. Everyone was wearing greasy tank tops and too-short-shorts – Karkat, a man who wore clothes three sizes too large, had better fashion sense than these assholes.

"Why the fuck are they all dressed like that?" he asked as soon as John had stopped in an empty, vast kitchen. Karkat felt wet. He gagged.

"What do you mean?" John asked, dressed in a blue shirt and black cargo shorts, himself.

"Like..." the shorter started, doubled over and dry heaving. "Like poor people?"

John's face contorted into a confused, almost condescending smile as he backed up to the island, which had fancy white marble countertops. "What did you expect?"

Karkat shrugged, taking in his surroundings. Jade obviously had a personal chef; all the appliances looked too fancy for just the casual cooker. Did Jade even live with anyone?

"Gucci shit, I guess. That's a brand, right?"

John nodded. "There's no reason to prove they have money. They know. The people that wear that fancy shit to parties – those are the people only _pretending_ to have money."

Karkat took a step or two over the tiled floor, looking for somewhere to lean up against. Nothing looked exactly fragile, but he was still intimidated by the sheer fanciness. "Is that why you smell like you've been wearing the same shirt for three days?"

"Totally," John snorted, stretching his legs out. Karkat settled against a counter near John's feet – John's shoes seemed to be rattier and older than Karkat's own, and he'd had his as a high school freshman. "So what's it like in Ohio?"

Karkat shrugged, growling to himself. "Boring. Dave's probably glad he moved. I'd be."

John looked to the ceiling thoughtfully, scrunching up his nose repeatedly to move his glasses. "I don't know. He talks about it a lot."

"It's probably the only thing he _has_ to talk about," Karket noted, internally cringing about holding an actual conversation with John. "He lived there his entire life. Where is he, anyway?"

"Oh," John nodded. "Yeah, he always disappears at parties. Usually gets lost in the crowd. He likes to dance, y'know?"

"He dances?" Karkat asked, incredulous.

"Yeah!" John's eyes lit up. "I mean, he just kinda sways like he doesn't really give a fuck, but he usually ends up with some chick to bring home, so it works."

Mad at Strider for leaving him alone in a strange place, on the one day he could fly into see him, and only to pick up some girls, Karkat considered telling John that Dave absolutely couldn't dance for shit. He thought about telling him the story of July 2013's movie night – the one where Dave got so high he actually gave in to the Terezi and Gamzee's dares and danced for his three friends, looking more like an elderly stripper who was experiencing a mild-to-severe seizure rather that whatever the fuck he'd been going for.

Instead, Karkat said, "Chicks?"

"He's a lady's man," John said, looking everywhere but at the man by his feet, before adding, "Here, at least. I know you said he was a late bloomer."

"In every sense of the word," the other muttered, recalling a conversation they'd had shortly before Dave left, concerning Terezi; he'd still been a virgin.

John laughed, still not meeting his eye. "Yeah, I'll have to make sure to bug him about that some time."

Karkat nodded, not really caring what John asked Dave about after he was gone. Yeah, Dave would probably get mad at him for spilling his secret past, or whatever, but he was already fed up with old friend's behavior after just a few hours of being in California. Karkat didn't care how mad Dave'd get. He felt like the asshole deserved it.

"Hey," John called after an awkward moment of silence, "mind if I go?"

Karkat looked up, trying to not to let his eyes go wide. He didn't like the kid, but he didn't like being alone in an unfamiliar place, either.

"I mean, I'll get Jade first," John said distractedly, looking out the doorway and into the party. Karkat tried to follow his eyes. Maybe there was a girl? "Just give me a second."

He hopped off the counter, went through the archway, and left Karkat in the large, empty kitchen, speechless and raging, as if he were a lowly pot on a burner so hot he was boiling over, but still not worth paying attention to.

Who the fuck did these asshole think they were? What kind of damage did it take to think leaving someone behind, not just once, but twice, was just totally cool and good? Did no one know that Karkat was only staying one night? Did no one know how expensive plane tickets from Ohio to California were?!

Karkat didn't have to wait too long until a girl walked into the kitchen.

"Hi!" she greeted, bright as could be, eyes boring holes into his skull. Her hair was as dark as it was outside, with a face round as the moon. Her sweater, black with a geometric white design, hugged her waist. She was pretty, he supposed. "I'm Jade, and you must be Karkat!"

"Hey," he muttered back, rage only slightly subsiding; at least he wasn't alone.

"So you're Dave's friend?" she asked, stepping further in. She leaned up on the counter next to him, smiling. She had buck teeth, which he found weirdly endearing.

Karkat growled, crossing his arms loosely. "I guess."

She giggled. "Yeah, I see he left you."

"He's an asshole, that's for sure."

"He's not that bad," she defended gently, bumping Karkat's shoulder with her own. Karkat noticed that he didn't mind _her _over-familiarity, but why were all of Dave's new friends so friendly? "I mean, I'm sure I don't have to tell you that."

He grumbled, looking to his feet, not sure what to say to the girl. Even though ¾ of his current friends were women, he still had a difficult time relating to them. Besides, he'd known Terezi, Kanaya, and Rose forever, and this girl was totally foreign.

"John promised you'd gossip with me about Dave," she said, grinning in a way that likely would've looked mischievous if not for her childlike features.

"What do you want to know?" Karkat responded monotonously, faking boredom, when in reality, he was more than eager to talk shit. Dave had chosen to spend Karkat's one day away from him, and he was just immature enough to need revenge any way he could get it.

"Tell me about his friends back in Ohio!" she suggested, clasping her sweater-covered hands in front of her. "He doesn't talk about it much."

Karkat huffed at that – John said it was all Dave talked about, and had likely lied. "He only liked, like, four people, and one was his sister, so she doesn't really–"

Jade interrupted, "Wait, Dave has a sister?"

Karkat looked up to the girl, taken aback. He felt the confusion on his face as he stuttered, "Y-yeah? They're twins? Her name is Rose?"

"You sound unsure." She tried to giggle, but she seemed to be just as confused as Karkat. "Why doesn't he ever talk about her?"

Karkat shrugged rather largely and dramatically, looking away from the girl and to the farthest wall. "I have no idea. They always got along alright. I don't know..."

"Hmm," she hummed, pushing herself up onto the counter, swinging her legs and showing off her striped knee-socks. "Maybe she's just never come up. What she like?"

"Run-of-the-mill smartass," he said. "Could kick anyone's ass at Scrabble, probably. She's dating one of my best friends, but I don't really spend all that much time with her."

"Dave's a smartass, too," Jade noted. Karkat shrugged in response. He'd always found Dave to be more annoying than clever, unlike Rose.

"Why do you need me to tell you stuff about him, anyway?" Karkat asked. "Why can't you ask him?"

"Oh, he wouldn't tell me anything fun," she said, shaking her head. "He's too busy trying to protect his image. He doesn't talk about himself."

Karkat grunted in response, offering no more, too busy thinking. For someone that wanted to keep their Ohio license plate, Dave sure did seem eager to leave his home behind.

"Then tell me about you," Jade prompted, with such genuine interest that it almost made Karkat gag. Why did she care when his former best friend couldn't be bothered to?

"I don't know," he sighed. "I'm an angsty beanpole with a slight drug problem and anger issues out the ass. Or so I'm told. I think I'm justified, but cheap weed helps."

"Oh, c'mon," she chastised, and he expected her to tell him to go easier on himself. "Why the cheap stuff?"

Karkat felt his eyebrows lift in shock. He looked over to her. "Shit, you smoke?"

Jade giggled in return, blushing just a bit..

"I will have to remember that," Karkat noted to himself, as if he could really do anything with this information in the future. "I brought some weed Gamzee gave me, but it's in my backpack, which, of course, is now at Dave's."

"I shouldn't get messed up at my own party, anyway," Jade said, shaking her head. "Who knows what would happen in this house without my sober eyes?"

Karkat noted that she wasn't currently using her "sober eyes" for the party at all, but said nothing about it. "What about here?" he asked. "What's he like here?"

Jade thought to herself before answering, "Kind of quiet."

Karkat laughed. "Quiet?"

"Why's that funny?" Jade asked.

Karkat had never made a noise he would describe as a "chortle," but he'd definitely just done something similar. "Dave couldn't keep his mouth shut if you duct taped the duct tape you used to duct tape his mouth. He rambles like he gets paid by the Freudian slip."

"What do you mean?"

"He once told me, in passing, that he found Terezi hot. This was before they dated, so he hadn't meant to tell me this, of course. He attempted to cover it up with stammers about how _all_ of his friends were hot."

Jade barked out a laugh, eyes bright, and it was reassuring. Even if he had moved across the fucking country, and even if he ignored Karkat immediately upon arrival, at least Dave had good friends.


	3. or never

He stopped breathing for a second when he first walked into the Strider's mansion. He'd gotten a glimpse of the grand foyer when they'd dropped off his backpack before the party, hours ago, but seeing it from the inside, with time to let his eyes explore and wander, the first thing he noticed was it's sheer fucking size. It was surprisingly different from Jade's house – not that Karkat had really seen that much of either place. Rather than having an unassuming staircase that ran down a hallway, disappearing into the second floor, the Strider's had an almost octagonal, if not circular entrance hall that was three stories tall, with a spiral staircase that hugged the wall and climbed all the way up. A giant crystal chandelier hung from the tall ceiling, reflecting it's own light onto the walls of the top floor.

Karkat felt a little silly as he kicked off his ratty shoes on to the (as predicted) very expensive doormat. This wasn't a place he felt he belonged; it wasn't familiar. Nothing he knew about Dave, or his brother, for that matter, was reflected in this home. The walls were practically baby pink, for fuck's sake, and there wasn't a sign of obsessive irony in sight. He was actually really fucking disappointed that there wasn't an ornate vase on a pedestal, waiting to be knocked over, which Bro would've found fucking hilarious in Ohio, even though he knew if he _had_ seen it, if Bro _had_ chosen to make that particular anime reference, Karkat would've been disproportionately annoyed by him wasting money.

"I am surprised it doesn't smell like artificial cheese and ass," he said, looking to Dave with (what he hoped was) an inexpressive face.

Dave snorted before turning away and entering what Karkat assumed was the living room; he could only see a bit of it through the archway. The bit he did see looked as fancy as the entrance, much to his relief.

"What happened to my bag?" Karkat asked, calling after Dave as he remembered giving his backpack to the butler. He wondered for a moment how big the waitstaff was, and if they were always at the house; Jade's had been noticeably absent from the party, after all, so maybe they had their own homes?

"The guest bedroom is on the third floor. It's probably up there. Feel free to poke around. I'm gonna watch TV."

Karkat grumbled to himself, incredibly frustrated by Dave's utter lack of hospitality, but set off up the stairs, anyway. "You better fucking bet I'll poke around," he muttered under his breath, running his hand along the wooden banister as he climbed the stairs. "Poke around so much the house will think I'm a fucking doctor trying to find cancerous lumps."

When he reached the third floor, he noted, with equal parts relief and disgust, that while you could take the Strider's from their mess, you couldn't expect them to keep a clean place clean.

In the hallway alone, clothes littered the ground. From suits to jeans to boxers, Karkat wondered if their waitstaff (which he was still assuming existed, and was larger than John Holmes's penis) contained a maid. As he walked through, going all the way to the right and avoiding the mess, he gently opened each door, not sure what what he would find behind each one.

The first room was pitch black, with the windows covered by blackout shades, but Karkat still could tell this was Bro's room. It was fucking giant; it probably took up the entire right wing of the house. Like the hallway, he could tell it was covered in clothes – how many outfits did these assholes need? Among many suits was trash, and even though it was far away and darker than Hades' asshole on the winter solstice, Karkat was sure he could see the outline of a smuppet ass on the Californian king bed.

He really fucking hoped Bro's weird porn site was still running.

He gently closed the door and followed the hallway, back towards the stairs this time, hand running lazily along the wall. He had to lift it, at one point, to avoid touching a formal portrait of Bro. It was a semi-creepy thing to see hanging in the hallway; it was likely painted right after the move, as Dirk still had his soul patch, and as Karkat had seen in the tabloids, that had been shaved months ago. He was grasping a cane, held out to his right side, as he looked over his shoulder, back to the viewer, like an old Renaissance painting. If not for the intimidating suit and shaded face, he may have looked ironically "sexy". At least, it looked like that's what he was going for.

Karkat shook his head, tearing his eyes away, and kept walking. The next room was far better-lit, and definitely, without a doubt, Dave's room. And it was completely fucking spotless. The only reason Karkat was even sure this was the right room, the bedroom of his former best friend, was because of the DJ setup in the corner. Karkat did acknowledge that in his Ohio residence, Dave still had the cleanest room in the house, with the clutter coming mostly from wires that led from his little music station to every fucking corner of the room, including where his bed was. However, here, there was no audio turn-table switch-knob thing on the nightstand, and that was irritating, for some reason.

Karkat may or may not have been aware that he was looking for things to piss him off.

He shut the door fast, after only giving himself a second to take it in. Karkat, himself, was not the messiest guy, but shit, did he want to see this whole place as a fucking wreck, just like it had been in Ohio. Dirk had obviously remained the same – what the shit was up with Dave?

After peeking into a bathroom that matched the rest of the house in fanciness, Karkat finally found the guest room, marked by the backpack laying neatly on the pristine queen bed. Feeling agitated and rather twitchy, he resisted the urge to seek out the weed Gamzee gave him – what a great friend, hooking a rather dependent and forever-antsy Karkat on the shit, and teaching him how to get it through airport security.

He thought about "poking around" some more (likely in Dave's room), but he decided, rather rationally, that finding more things to be irritated about was not the best way to avoid smoking his whole stash. So with a frustrated huff, Karkat came back down the stairs, passing over the second floor, and landing back in the foyer.

"Strider?" he called out, going in the archway Dave had gone through before.

"You're a shitty doctor if you think ten minutes is all it takes for a thorough exam," he responded, but Karkat didn't see him in the lavish formal living room. This was obviously a room for whatever business shit Bro needed it for; it was completely spotless and utterly beautiful, with each of three couches that surrounded the embellished, carved fire place probably costing more than Karkat's entire house.

Karkat kept walking, moving across the dark hardwood floor and coming to another archway; through this one, he could hear an action movie playing. "And what do you know about cancer exams?"

Dave (Karkat found him sprawled on a leather couch, feet up on the coffee table) shrugged, wrist-deep in a bowl of popcorn. Karkat could see an explosion reflect in his sunglasses. He looked to the plasma screen TV for a second and noted that, of course, it too was larger than the average porn star's penis. "Just that you'd be shit at them," Dave said.

Karkat sat down in the nearest arm chair and snapped, "Why are you still wearing those?"

Dave glanced at him for a second. "What?"

"The sunglasses." Karkat made a weird hand gesture to Dave's face, rotating his wrist in a circle and letting his fingers swing freely.

The amateur DJ shrugged again. "Why do you care?"

Karkat growled. He cared for too many fucking reasons, not a single one of which he wanted to share. "It makes you look like a douche."

A moment passed before Dave admitted, nonchalantly, like it wasn't a thing that would confuse Karkat's emotions, "Maybe I _am_ a douche."

Karkat let out a long, low huff as he tried to figure out whether to be angry or sad, and muttered under his breath, "You weren't always."

"What was that?" Dave asked, but Karkat was sure that he heard.

"Why did you move?" Karkat asked before he could stop himself. He sat a little straighter, trying to appear confident in his question, and not afraid of the answer.

Dave sat up, too, moving his popcorn bowl to the coffee table before reaching for the remote to turn off the TV. When the screen turned black, he let his elbows rest on his thighs, sitting hunched over. "I guess I'll finish that another time."

"Rose didn't move," Karkat continued. "You could've stayed with her and your mom. I mean, shit, at least you fucking _like_ them!"

"Shut up, Karkat." Even though he couldn't see his eyes, the shorter was absolutely sure that the taller had rolled his.

"Was it about the fame and the money?" Karkat asked. "Were you just sick of your friends? Did you just –"

"Rose got a choice, " he said. "That doesn't mean I did."

Karkat sat silently for a moment, adjusting to that information. "What do you mean?"

Dave sat for a second, likely deciding whether or not to share. "Bro didn't want to take Rose away from Kanaya, which was smart of him," he said, and it was true. She would've been hell to live with if she had been forcibly relocated far from her girlfriend. "Mom thought that forcing me to live with Dirk would patch all of our issues up."

Karkat tried to process that, too, but Dave barely gave him a second.

"I didn't want you to come, you know."

The dark-haired boy bristled, first with shock, then with hurt and anger. His feelings were jumping all over the negative end of the emotion spectrum. "You've made that clear," Karkat growled out.

"Did Dirk ask you to come?"

"Yeah, for an entire week," Karkat said. "I have no doubt that you're the reason it's only for a night."

"I didn't invite you," he clarified, needlessly.

"Where is Dirk, anyway?" Karkat asked quickly, trying to change the subject. He didn't like that he was a crier, but he was, and shit, would now be a shitty time to cry.

Dave sat back, sinking into the couch. "I don't know. He's never here."

Karkat quite easily resisted the temptation to pry into that relationship.

Dave asked, "Why did you even bother coming?"

Karkat knew that the obvious, and essentially only answer was "because I wanted to see you," but he didn't really feel up to saying that. "Your brother invited me."

"Did he pay for the tickets?"

Karkat barked out a weird, anxious and frustrated laugh. "Please, Strider. I don't take handouts. Just because you guys have enough money to bathe in doesn't mean I need your help."

"So Kankri paid," Dave said, very matter-of-fact and nodding, leaving no room for argument.

Not that there was an argument to be had. Yeah, Karkat's older brother helped out a bit. A lot, actually, if he was being honest. Kankri had a successful career as a prosecutor, and Karkat had a part-time cashiering job at Target, which he was surprised he hadn't been fired from yet; he did _not _have a way with customers. Karkat was lucky that his household's breadwinner was so generous, even if said generosity did come with a long and tedious lecture.

"You wouldn't let your brother buy you anything, and you've never cared about manners," Dave informed him, oh-so-helpfully.

"Holy shit, I get it!" he snapped. "It was wrong of me to come!"

Dave nodded once. More than once, Karkat guessed, would've made it looked like the cool kid cared a fraction, or like he had any interest in the conversation. Or any interest in Karkat, for that matter.

Flustered, the shorter barked, in spite of himself, "Was it wrong for me to want to see you?"

He silently noted, again, how much he fucking hated the sunglasses. Any expression that Dave may have been making, any twinge of guilt that Karkat was dying to see, was all hidden behind mirrored shades.

"Take the fucking glasses off!" he yelled.

"No."

Karkat flung himself off the armchair, fists tight at his sides. "Fuck all of your crazy bullshit, Strider! Consider this: yes! Take your stupid coolguy shades off!"

"Why do you care so much?" Dave responded, repeating an earlier question, calm as ever. This, Karkat admitted, was a normal behavior – he'd always been rather unfazed when Karkat threw a tantrum. This did not make said behavior any less frustrating.

"Because I want to see you!" Karkat snapped out before he could stop himself; he followed this with a strained wail. An awkward moment of silence followed before Karkat yelled, "You know what I meant, shitwad!"

Actually, Karkat wasn't sure if _he_ even knew what he meant.

A few more tense seconds passed as Karkat tried to keep himself from flushing red. He swore there was an awkward electricity pulsing around him, pushing at him to sit back down, while simultaneously forbidding him to move. He knew he was fidgeting under Dave's steady gaze, even though he was staring at the floor, and that didn't help matters at all.

In one smooth, but not too quick motion, Dave removed his shades, allowing his bright red irises to be seen, but before Karkat could recover and arrogantly celebrate, he noticed that the man still looked entirely apathetic to the situation.

"Happy now?" he asked, face blank.

"No," Karkat huffed, disappointed, finally throwing himself back into the chair. He bit his lip and tried to keep thinking straight. He felt something in his chest tighten, followed by a weird, disheartening flop of his stomach, and he asked weakly, feeling like a pathetic newborn with nothing to lose as he did so, "Why don't you care about me anymore?"

He wished that Dave would put his shades back on, right now, immediately, as he watched those red eyes roll. "Come on, Karkat," he scoffed. "Did you really think we were going to be best friends forever? That in our old age, we'd wheel ourselves out into the goddamn sunset, away from our decrepit nursing home, oxygen tanks following behind, as our purposefully shitty toupees lifted in the wind?"

"I don't know if I expected that," Karkat said, once again standing, as his body couldn't decide which made him more comfortable, "or if I just didn't expect you to be such a raging, veiny dick about seeing me after only six months."

Dave threw his arms out to the side, eyebrows lifting, as he said, "Yet here we are, comparing dicks."

Karkat narrowed his eyes in what he hoped looked like anger, though he was actually just confused about how Dave had decided to extend that particular metaphor. "If you'll excuse me, I'll be up in my bedroom, getting so, so fucking high, that when I'm 35,000 feet up in the air tomorrow, it'll feel like 70,000."

"You're excused," Dave responded, returning to his earlier position of laying down on the couch, feet on the coffee table, hand in popcorn, grabbing the remote with his other hand on the way back. He turned on the TV and resumed his movie.


	4. and if I wait

Karkat watched as smoke poured from his face, for the umpteenth time, in utter amazement. The higher he got, the more fascinating it was to watch; he swore he'd never get used to the way it looked, all floaty and suddenly appearing. It was beautiful to look at something so temporary and fleeting, and to think to oneself "I made that – I made that happen," as it vanished into the air.

He took another puff, letting the smoke dance in front of his eyes, as he began to notice how soft the comforter on the guest bed was. He'd decided earlier that, yes, he was absofuckinglutely going to smoke pot on the bed, hoping to leave behind some permanent stench of weed that would forever remind Dave of that one weekend he was an asshole, but he hadn't taken a moment to stop and feel how amazing it was. He let his empty hand trail around as he bounced himself up and down, just slightly. He thought about getting under the covers; that would make him feel real cozy.

Karkat felt awesome. He swore that he would be high for the rest of his life. Fuck everyday responsibilities and general emotions; this was better. He still felt mad at Dave, of course, but he could almost forget about if he just stopped thinking about it, simple as that. If he let his mind wander back home, where Terezi and Gamzee were waiting, he felt better. Well, until he remembered what Terezi and Gamzee were likely doing in his absence, at which point he had to let his mind wander elsewhere, like to what the hell Bro was doing. He liked to imagine that he was building a robot horse in his secret lab; Dirk used to do shit like that all the time back home. Karkat hoped he hadn't changed.

He wasn't a big fan of change. He didn't mind updates or advancements or upgrades, but he did mind change. He felt like there was a difference, somehow; he wasn't a crotchety old man yelling at his computer, after all, he was just mourning the loss of a close friend.

Karkat shook his head and wrinkled his nose before taking another hit. It was easier to smoke with other people around; they would keep you giggling and full of nonsense, rather than letting you fall into a boiling pit of angsty bullshit, as he was prone to do.

"Vantas?" he heard coming from the other side of the door, somewhere down the hall. He knew it was Dave, so he pettily refused to answer. Smoke fell out of his face. "You better not be in my room."

Karkat rolled his heavy eyes as he heard a door, far down the hallway, open. He sat in silence for a few moments, waiting for Dave to move on. Dave tried calling out his first name, too, to no avail, before shutting the door. Karkat huffed, scooting off the deliciously comfortable bed, and made his way over to the en suite, joint still in hand. He hadn't been in there yet, so he was curious to check it out, and more than eager to hide from Dave, if only to make a game of it.

He shut the door behind him a little too loudly, he figured, as he heard footsteps grow louder in the hallway. "Shit," he muttered, as he tried to not get caught up in the fanciness of the bathroom, and instead, looked into the giant jacuzzi bath, thinking he could curl up and lay there.

From the bottom of the gloriously white tub, a pair of shoes stared back at him. They appeared to be the red Converse Karkat had begrudgingly bought Strider for his thirteenth birthday. While he had no idea what the fuck they were doing in the guest bathtub, he found it a little hard to care; the fact that Dave still had the shoes at all, regardless that he'd outgrown them only a few months after getting them, softened Karkat up a bit. At least _they'd _survived the move.

"Vantas?" Dave called after opening the door to the guest bedroom just half a second before Karkat began cracking up in the bathroom. It was a hearty series of chuckles, though they all came from his chest, rather than his stomach. Staring the shoes, he still felt a little delighted, which, when paired with the "wacky tabacky," as Terezi once called it, and his two closet friends, expressed itself in uncontrollable laughter.

Though, he recalled, he was usually better at keeping it together than this. The first time he smoked, Gamzee got the synthetic K2 shit, hearing it was stronger, which fucked up him, Dave, and Terezi quite a bit, but Karkat had felt disappointingly sober, not at all interested in engaging in their antics. Since then, he'd only had a few moments where his equally-as-fucked-up friends felt that he was fucked-up, as opposed to just relaxed. For instance, one time he fell down the stairs to Gamzee's basement while returning from a snack run, and another, he'd stolen Gamzee's friend's phone (Tavros, Karkat thought his name was), gone through the camera roll, found a shirtless picture of the poor kid, put a black and white filter over it before finally showing it to the boy, and whispering, ever so lightly while staring into his eyes, "Now, it's perfect."

The door to the bathroom opened not long after, and, joint wiggling between two fingers, Karkat stared blankly at Dave's shade-less face, trying valiantly to stop the giggles and maybe recall why he was angry in the first place. It took a moment for the giggles to disappear, but when they did, Karkat's smile followed. He used to accidentally piss off Terezi with his flip-flopping between giggly asshole and philosophical stoner.

"Hey," Dave, rather lamely. "I . . . I was wondering if you wouldn't mind sharing."

Karkat continued his silent treatment, taking a long hit before exhaling beautiful smoke into the large space that existed between him and his former best friend. The giggle fit had passed completely; he was slightly proud of himself for being able to maintain his facade of calm anger.

Dave fiddled with the handle on the door a bit. "I miss Gamzee's weed a significant amount more than I miss him. I bought some shitty stuff from Bro's new dealer. It was mostly dirt. Maybe a sign that I should stop."

Karkat narrowed his eyes. "Addiction is a powerful thing." He figured that sounded deep, or some shit, he guessed.

Dave nodded. "Yeah, I suppose it is. So, do you mind if I join you?"

He took one step back into the bedroom, towards the backpack on the bed that he knew contained weed, but Karkat remained still. After a long moment, the latter said, "You couldn't bare to be around me all day."

"You haven't had weed all day," Dave countered. "Not on you, at least."

Karkat rolled his eyes, wishing for a moment that he was more consistently giggly. He needed to take another hit, he thought to himself. "If only I'd known earlier that that was the key to winning your attention."

"I am but a simple man."

After a stiff moment, Karkat took a few steps and thrust out his arm, handing over his joint. It took Dave a few seconds to register that he was to take the weed, but once he did, he was careful not to touch Karkat. The shorter of the two then took the last steps from the bathroom and to the bed in order to begin rolling himself a new one.

Dave awkwardly shuffled over and sat down on the edge of the comforter, as far away from Karkat as he could managed. He coughed. "So, uh, Terezi's with Gamzee now?"

"You want to talk about Ohio?"

Dave shrugged. Karkat could see his eyebrow twitch and eyes narrow. "I guess."

Karkat nodded silently, letting the quiet hang for a few more moments. He felt more sober than he had a few minutes ago and he didn't like that one bit. "I wouldn't say it happened as a result of you leaving, but I'm in a mood to blame everything on you, so for all intents and purposes, after you left, she settled for Gamzee."

"How's that all working out?" Dave asked, pulling the joint to his lips.

"He's not good for her," Karkat said. "Like, it's not one of those two-way street relationships where they're either both nice to each other or both flying off their respective handles; he's very clearly worse for her than she is for him. I don't really know what to do. Terezi won't talk about it and Gamzee's just a dick. All I'm saying is basically, just fuck that guy."

Dave nodded; all Dave ever did was nod. "That's troubling."

"I'm not sure if I was uninvited to movie night, or if it's just not a thing anymore," Karkat admitted before licking his new joint closed. He then got up on the bed, resting on the corner opposite of Dave.

Karkat watched as his old friend sunk into the headboard, sucking in from his joint. "But you're still friends with him?"

Karkat shrugged. "It's hard to be friends with people that ignore you in favor of making out."

Dave let a moment of silence pass before asking, "Any way I could convince you that it's not my fault?"

"No, probably not."

He shrugged. "Well, just in case – I think she was into him before I left. I think that's why she dumped me."

"You're telling me she dumped you in high school so that she could get with her asshole stoner juggalo friend two years later when you moved, despite not knowing that you would?"

"Precisely."

Karkat rolled his eyes, trying to stay relaxed, and lit his joint with his gray Bic lighter. The weed was making it spectacularly easy to keep from attempting a physical fight with Strider. He made a note to keep considering being high for the rest of his life.

"What about Rose and Kanaya?"

Karkat gave Dave an exasperated look. "Please tell me you still fucking talk to your goddamn sister."

Dave shrugged. "Here and there, but I see your point."

"You're such an idiot," Karkat muttered to himself.

"So smoking a joint with you doesn't automatically get me out of trouble?"

Karkat laughed bitterly. "Oh, you are fuck deep in trouble. Up to your fucking neck in trouble. Absolutely entrenched in trouble. Trouble may as well be the name of your –"

"I get the picture, Vantas," Dave interrupted.

"What the fuck happened to you?" Karkat asked, weed replacing what would've been hostility with genuine curiosity.

Dave bristled a bit, taking a moment to take a hit before letting out a long, smoke-filled exhale. "Vantas, I don't see why this has to be a federal fucking issue – people are allowed to grow up and change and shit. Not keeping in touch is kinda the natural order of moving."

Karkat's face twisted up. "Who the fuck told you that?"

"I'm just saying –"

"You're fucking lying, is what you're saying," Karkat cut in, slicing through the bullshit. "That's stupid, and even you know it. You don't just fucking abandon your friends because your brother won the goddamn life lottery."

Dave shrugged. "We would've kept in touch for a month at most, like those penpals elementary schools make you have when you're learning how to write, but who you never talk to again, because what's the fucking point? You tell Billy about your dog, or tell him how Grandma makes some bombtastic cookies that you gobble down like a fucking dog gobbles down the T-bone from a steak, or how –"

"It's because of the gay thing, isn't it?" Karkat interrupted, letting the words come out before he could filter them and causing the room to become immediately silent. Dave's eyes widened in surprise, but his mouth fell into a dangerous grimace. Yeah, Karkat figured that might be a sore area. Stupid. Dammit.

"What'd you say?" Dave asked, red eyes glinting, looking very different then how he did a moment ago.

Karkat took in a long, tortuously weed-less breath, stalling so he could figure out whether or not he should bail. "Nothing, I guess," was the answer he finally decided on, though he was still aggravated.

"That's fucking right, nothing," Dave gritted out. He shook his head, and for a second, Karkat saw his brand new biceps, the ones he'd been admiring just a little bit in the car earlier, flex tensely. "Fuck you, Vantas."

"Yeah, you fucking wish, don't you?" Karkat shouted quickly, unable to fight the impulse. He reflexively moved off the bed and out of the way, which proved to be a good move, as Dave lunged for him a second later. "Come and get it!"

Standing felt fucking awful; his legs barely felt real, let alone capable of moving, but he made them carry him quickly to the bedroom door, which he opened fast, with Dave behind him. Dave was much more sober than he was, Karkat noted as he struggled with the handle. He was sure, if he wasn't as fucked up, this would've been a fucking riot to see, with the men caught in a wobbly game of cat and mouse. They likely weren't moving at the speed they thought they were, but Karkat didn't have much time to imagine this.

Suddenly, he was spilled out in the hallway, unable to catch his balance after using the door for support. Dave was on top of him in an instant, pinning him down, arms by his head. Strider was the lean, thin type of muscular, yeah, but it sure as hell beat Karkat's poor, malnourished ass. He could feel his tendons and shit moving under Dave's hands, and it made him squirm uncomfortably and pull a face. It was in this moment that he realized he must've dropped his joint (and that Strider must've done the same), and he hoped, momentarily, that it singed the carpet.

"Get the fuck off of me, asshole!"

Dave's eyes looked more passionate than Karkat had ever seen them. When they were younger, they'd often wrestle, and while Karkat always got worked up over it, Strider was able to suplex him with style and a snicker. This was a bit different.

"Don't you say another goddamn word," Strider growled out.

Despite being in the lowest position of power, Karkat couldn't help but poke the metaphorical bear. He silently claimed that it was because this was the most emotion he'd seen from Dave the whole trip, which was true, but if he was being honest with himself, he knew he just wanted Strider to come clean.

"You know what–"

And then, suddenly, there was a fist in Karkat's jaw. With his newly free hand (Strider had let go), he swung back, uppercutting Dave before using the rest of his arm in an attempt to push Strider off. This was met with another left hook, which hit Karkat's eye, causing him to surrender.

"ASSHOLE!" bellowed Karkat, bringing both hands up to nurse his new injury. Dave pushed himself off the wounded man, sitting on the ground next to him. "WHAT THE FUCK?"

"You did that to yourself, fuckface," Dave snapped back, pulling himself together, both physically and mentally. He ended up with his feet near Karkat's torso and his arms around his knees.

"I'm gonna have a black eye, you goddamn miserable shitmouthed infant!" Karkat cried back, still holding his eye tightly while spewing nonsense. His jaw, the first targeted area, hurt as well, but he was more worried about what Kankri would see upon Karkat's return home.

"So don't fucking talk about shit you shouldn't talk about," Dave returned with a shrug, obviously trying to regain his cool composure.

That pissed Karkat the fuck off.

"Grow the fuck up, man! So I gave you head! That doesn't–"

Karkat was not surprised when he got a foot to the ribs, winding him. He groaned loudly in pain, rolling over on his side.

"I'm going back to the guest room," Dave announced, standing up, "to complete the original plan of getting high as fuck. You are not to talk to me until then, because otherwise I will be forced to give you injuries that make a black eye look stylish for the winter."

Karkat groaned in response, unable to muster any comment about blowjobs. In fact, as he heard Dave pad into the room they came from, the best he could do was simply recall the incident, which was progress, considering he'd tried hard to put it out of his mind once Dave moved.

It had happened during the last movie night they'd all been together. Gamzee and Terezi had passed out exactly one and a half movies before Karkat and Dave started talking, reminiscing about their time together. It had been simply really, really gay, though they were able to forgive themselves, as it was mostly weed-induced.

Karkat had never given a fuck about his sexuality. He didn't have any big "come to grips" moment with himself, let alone a "coming out" talk with anyone else. He knew he was pansexual before he even knew there was a word for it, despite not getting any until his junior year, at which point there was a month he experimented with nearly anyone, just for fun. He realized, after high school, that that may have happened because it was also around the first time he started getting high on a regular basis, but at the time, he blew it off at simple exploration.

Dave had not had it as easy. Where Kankri had done little more than rant about the dangers of STDs, Bro raised Dave on toxic masculinity, something that, supposedly, having a dick in your ass/your dick in another dude's ass would ruin. With a homophobic brother whom he loved so much, Dave was buried so deep in the closet he just thought that was what the world looked like. Despite this, and maybe because of this, Karkat always had a lingering suspicion that maybe Bro, himself, was gay – he'd never had any girlfriend to speak of, and he'd never said a word about Rose's homosexual tendencies. The Strider/Lalondes were likely just very gay, with Rose being the only one smart enough to not be so in denial.

With one last rub at his eye, Karkat stood up and started to make his way back to his joint, where he planned to obey Dave's wishes, at least for a little while, and sit in silence.


	5. could I ever

Karkat hadn't checked in a mirror yet, having only made it back to his position at the corner of Dave's guest bed, opposite of Dave himself, but he could already feel his eye swelling. Not to mention, it was starting to affect his vision, and he was beginning to panic.

He'd never been the paranoid type—not while high, at least. Again, he was usually pretty relaxed when he got fucked up, and only rarely the way he'd been tonight: giggly, occasionally faux-philosophical, and even a bit aggressive. Strider was sort of ruining this for him, and on top of that, the idea of Kankri seeing him with a black eye was just terrifying. What was he going to tell his brother? He wouldn't be able to tell the truth—then he'd have to explain that he gave his ex-best friend (oh fuck, he'd have to explain the "ex" part, wouldn't he?) a blowjob in his stoner friend's basement, and shit, would he have to explain how high they'd been? Would he have to tell him how they were _right now_? Would he have to endure a lecture about the effects of smoking, as if he, once a kid that went through the public school system, wasn't already aware? Shit, how many lectures would there be? He could talk about illegal drugs, or STDs (again), or the value of friendship, or the danger of basement parties, or first-aid, or some other shit, who knows? He was as unpredictable as he was insanely condescending, and shit, fuck—

"Calm down," Dave said. He didn't say it in a particularly comforting or soothing way, but it broke the seal of silence, and therefore, Karkat felt permission to speak.

He blurted out exactly what he was thinking. "Kankri isn't gonna let me come back here."

If possible, Dave sank farther into the headboard. He responded apathetically, "You're not coming back, anyway."

Fuck, that was right. "Oh, I'm sorry," Karkat snapped, looking down at his hands and angrily clicking his nails against each other. He bit them with semi-regularity, so he was mostly just picking at the edges. "Somehow, I'd already forgotten what a shitshow this whole thing has been. Silly, stupid me."

"You saw a beach and you partied in a mansion," Dave countered, almost defensively, as he took a hit from his quickly dying joint. "A grand Californian experience. You'll be fucking fine."

Karkat rolled his eyes. Yeah, Dave was making it impossible to get his buzz on. "Oh, yes, again, excuse me, I'm being very difficult today. I also forgot how much I put you out by forcing you to entertain me."

"You really should thank me. It's only polite."

Karkat found himself aggravated and about to make a comment about how Strider should've been thankful for the blowjob, but that would've only earned him another black eye, so he found his long-lost self-control and refrained. "Why are you such a fucking asshole?" he sputtered out instead.

"You ask a lot of questions for someone who should be shutting the fuck up and leaving me to get high." Dave looked very calm for someone who had just participated in a physical fight.

Karkat barked, "You could've gone back to your own goddamn room, dickweed, but you didn't, so really, whose fucking fault is that?"

"Don't read into it," Dave said, shrugging it off and rolling his shoulders back into the headboard. It looked like, with all his fidgeting, he couldn't get comfortable. "The weed is here."

"You could've taken your joint and left," Karkat said, despite not really wanting Dave to leave. Even though he was fed the fuck up with the guy, he was still craving, and almost enjoying, being the center of Strider's attention. He decided, silently, that he was masochist.

Dave took a moment to process this. "You're right," he eventually said, surprising Karkat. "Maybe I will."

Still, neither of them moved. Karkat felt the need to urge him out the door, just to see how it would go, but he was afraid Dave would take him up on it. More silence.

Dave smirked before putting his joint to his lips. "You don't really want me to leave."

Karkat was ready to begin Round 2 of the Hallway Brawl. "I want you to get the fuck over yourself," he said with a surprising amount of honesty.

Dave shrugged, still smirking.

"How many times do I have to ask what happened?" Karkat asked, feeling a bit bewildered.

Dave took a long drag, in no hurry to answer a question that, yes, Karkat had asked, in one way or another, several times. "I answered that, y'know. You're just not _satisfied_ with the answer, and that's really your own problem."

"You don't think you owe me a satisfying answer?" Karkat demanded, looking at Dave, who was not returning the look, yet still smirking. "We were friends for years, and what, fuck, that just means nothing?"

"What the fuck do you want it to mean?"

Karkat broke his gaze and growled, looking away. He didn't really have an answer to that. Not one that didn't sound super, super gay, at least. It was just—he'd spent the majority of his life beside this buffoon. That's why he cared so much. It was like the guy who he'd known had just vanished, or worse, turned into this asshat, and that sucked. He just wanted his friend back.

And also, to occasionally blow him.

Fuck.

He guessed that _that_ probably _was_ exactly what happened to Dave. Everything he said about "the natural order of moving," losing touch and all that, that was probably still true, but wow, blowing your best friend at his going away party, your best friend who cannot be gay, a rule set by either him or his brother—not a good idea, and one that would definitely send him on a spiral._ Good job, Vantas_, Karkat thought to himself. _You fucked that up._

He repositioned himself on the bed, turning around and moving back so that he was next to Dave, head and shoulders on the headboard, legs crossed close to himself. The bed was big enough that there was still a comfortable amount of room between them, especially given that they'd both found homes on the very edges of the mattress. It was better like this; he wasn't as tempted to look over at Dave's red eyes.

Once he got comfortable, he took a deep breath, blew it out slowly, almost in a hiss, and finally muttered back, "I just don't want you to act like you fucking hate me."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dave nod, but neither looked over.

Silence once again found its home around the men. Karkat sighed, not in annoyance, but defeat. Things probably wouldn't be the same between them ever again, but after this trip, Karkat really couldn't figure out if he cared or not. It was probably better to let the memory of his friend, and all the nice stuff attached, to just be memories, rather than trying to force Dave to be like he used to. It was going to be more frustration than it was worth, for both of them, to pursue a friendship in the future.

As he sucked in what would probably be the last, or second-to-last, hit of his joint, Karkat began to wonder how Rose felt about all this. Yeah, Karkat and Dave had been best friends, but siblinghood, and more so, twinhood, was a lot closer than that. She hadn't been out to California at all, and it didn't sound like Dave had kept in contact very well. Maybe she hadn't kept in contact very well, either. Did she know what he was like now? Did she know about John and Jade, or anyone else? Did they have a fight before Dave left? Was it Karkat's fault? Did he fuck up more than just his own relationship with Strider?

"Karkat," Dave said, a bit quietly. Karkat jumped a bit at the noise, but didn't look over, opting instead to eye the bathroom door. This was despite that fact that he could feel, for once, that Dave was looking over.

"I don't hate you," Dave continued.

Karkat froze for a second, and then gave out a surprisingly nasty laugh, despite any surprise he may have felt. "Aw, how sweet," he found himself saying, like an idiot. He couldn't just take the goddamn olive branch. "Hard to say I feel the same, but here—"

"You do," Dave insisted, once again. He used to be more animated. "Feel the same."

_This_ made Karkat look over, eyes a bit narrow. "You don't know anything, asswipe," he grumbled.

"You don't hate me," Dave said, almost cocky. "Which is why you don't want me to hate you, in case you forgot."

"If you think that because I came to California," Karkat rebutted, "I only started hating you after the plane landed."

That was a lie. The truth was, he'd started to resent Dave a few months prior, when the kid couldn't be bothered to answer his texts or emails about the upcoming trip (or about anything, really). He had to get Kankri to call up Dirk, which had been as stupid as it was ego-shattering. This may have put Dave in a more detestable position when they first met back up, but Dave had been (predictably) a giant, loose asshole about the whole thing, so anything that preceded didn't really matter. After all, it was fucking John who was the first one to really welcome him to California, and they didn't even know each other.

"I don't—" Dave started.

Karkat looked back to the bathroom door. "Have you ever fucked John?"

Back to silence, for just fifteen seconds. Karkat really was a stupid, raging masochist.

"Oh, hey, cool," Strider responded flatly. "Guess that's my fucking cue."

And that time, he did move to leave, which only made Karkat more curious. He watched as Dave walked right through the door, and without any hesitation, he followed.

"What the fuck," Dave snapped over his shoulder as he moved right past where the Hallway Brawl had taken placed."

"I figured, after you left, that you'd experiment with dudes," Karkat said, matter-of-factly. Karkat did not think this, but he figured it would get under Dave's skin, and in spite of himself, he couldn't help but poke some more. "I know you liked Terezi, but you didn't get anywhere with her, and you're kinda gay, and he's the only guy I've met here."

More silence, but the movement continued. Karkat was surprised he still had one non-blackened eye.

"No, I haven't fucked John," Dave responded in a monotone state of what Karkat was sure had to be bewilderment when he made it to the doorway of his room. He turned, taking up the whole space. "That's the dumbest fucking logic…" he trailed off before starting again. "If that logic had to go through the American education system, it wouldn't do well on its SATs, and then it'd be forced to go to community college, where it would remain undeclared until forced into the business program, aka the major people who don't know what the fuck they're doing but have no artistic ability go into, hoping they'll be able to get a job with an associate's and no experience."

Karkat took a moment to process that; was this the extended metaphor game? He was playing a game after storming off? After being accused of fucking his friend? "There's nothing wrong with community college, or having business as a major," Karkat argued.

"There is when it's the only school that'll take you, and only because you pay tax dollars. And there is if you did it as a default, and not out of passion," Dave responded, casually, as if the last time Karkat implied that maybe some gay stuff went down (okay, Karkat had done more than imply), a physical altercation had not, in fact, ensued.

"Did the logic at least get a good GPA?" Karkat asked.

"Vantas, the logic failed every class," Dave scoffed. "Its GPA was like 0.69."

Karkat laughed, as if that were clever, and then he quickly stopped. What the fuck was going on? Dave moved inside his spotless room, and Karkat timidly followed. Strider made no attempt to stop him, which Karkat took as a good sign. Just like the first time he peeked in, Karkat eyed up the DJ equipment in the corner, and then at the turn-table-less nightstand—in its place was just a box of Kleenex. While before he'd just been angry that it wasn't as much as Strider'd had in Ohio, he now found that he was just happy that Dave had a setup at all.

"Do you still make music?" he asked.

Dave took a second to answer. "Yeah, I still make music."

"Is it still shit, or have you gotten better?"

"My music's fantastic. Always has been, always will be."

"Do you still rap over it?"

"Yeah, I still lay down sick rhymes," Dave responded, cocky, but he seemed a little distracted.

"Then it's not good," Karkat deadpanned.

Dave shook his head. "You've never understood art. My music library is like a beautiful museum, and you should respect it."

Karkat rolled his eyes, "Yeah, because you're so familiar with fine art."

There was a comfortable lull in the conversation as Dave sat down on his bed. Karkat held his arms over his chest as he kept snooping.

"Wh-what about you?" Dave blurted clumsily, surprising Karkat, who he was avoiding looking at. This was, of course, preceded and followed by silence.

"… Do I still make music?" Karkat asked, genuinely confused.

"No, did you... experiment with dudes?"

Karkat barked out a laugh, and then covered his mouth. "What the fuck, man?"

Dave shrugged. "You asked first."

Karkat was surprised, but answered anyway, a bit arrogant. He started moving around the room, examining it a bit more. There were no katanas or dead things in jars (a loss he was okay with), but there was the same Midnight Crew poster. "Strider, I was fucking guys a year before we got our diplomas."

"Oh, yeah," Dave responded quietly. Karkat wasn't sure if he was embarrassed about forgetting, or just awkward that that was a thing that happened in the first place. Likely the latter.

Karkat offered back, a bit bitter, "Yeah, you wouldn't really remember that. You kinda forbade the whole subject."

Dave shrugged. "Didn't wanna think about my best friend fuckin'."

Karkat bristled just a little bit at the "best friend" part of that, but he couldn't help but bust Dave's balls a little bit more. "Fucking _dudes_, you mean."

"Tuh-may-to, tuh-mah-to," Dave muttered, laying on his own bed in the same way he had in the guest room. "You never dated any of them like a proper lady, anyway."

Karkat laughed a bit more and then fell onto the bed as well, in a comfortable position, and also, for once, a comfortable silence. Still, he had a feeling this friendliness, this moment that felt just like the good old days, wasn't permanent.

"I like girls, though," Strider said aloud after a moment, gaze locked on his feet.

Karkat rolled his eyes. "Yeah, fuckface, so do I. The two aren't mutually exclusive."

"I've fucked girls since I got here," he said, glancing over at his visitor this time.

Karkat shifted on top of the bed (he actually had a bedframe here, instead of a mattress on a box spring) and pulled a face. He felt weird knowing that particular piece of information. He'd been wondering if that was the case since Dave ditched him at Jade's party, and he figured it probably was, but still, he didn't know what to make of it.

Dave looked back to his feet, but continued, "Jade was the first, but she doesn't know that."

"Why are you sharing shit _now_?" Karkat felt a little bewildered.

"I have no idea. Drugs? Shit, man, I always talk too much."

"Well, you really haven't—"

"I've thought about it," Dave muttered, his narrowed eyes and quiet voice giving away what "it" was.

Karkat froze for a second, turning that over and over in his head a dozen times, and then a dozen times more. Was he really sure that meant what he thought it meant?

With a sense of urgency, he asked flatly, with a half-baked plan in mind, "I'm never being invited back again, am I?"

Dave took one large breath before putting his joint out in between his thumb and forefinger. He set it on the bedside table, and despite seeming grateful for the change of topic, said, "Not on my life, Vantas. Not unless you want to be buried here."

"Well, then," Karkat sighed, mimicking the way Dave put out his joint, and not thinking his actions through any further. Despite Dave's return to his new, hard demeanor, Karkat still felt emboldened. "We don't have much to lose, do we?"

It was with this that Karkat moved towards Dave. The little bastard was rather quick and nimble about it, especially for someone who was otherwise so easily flustered. In a second, Karkat was beside Strider, his hands on either side of the man's ribcage, and suddenly, sure lips met still ones, as he fully prepared himself for a blow to the temple. Karkat hadn't quite worked out if this meant that he liked Dave as more than a "friend," if Dave could even be called that at this point, but he'd gone for it anyway, despite not usually being so forward, and fuck, did it feel good. His adrenaline was pumping from the risk he was taking, but it was more than that, too; the stupid cliché "electricity" he'd read about in romance novels didn't feel quite so fictional any more.

The temple shot never came, but Dave didn't reciprocate, either. Karkat pulled back, resisting temptation and moving his far hand back to his side of the bed. He looked into Dave's bright red eyes, feeling anxious as he prepared himself for some sort of crushing refusal, or insult, or, fuck, _something_. And yet, silence. Silence for a long five seconds, until—

"Do that again," Dave said, almost forcefully.

Karkat wondered if this would've happened if they were sober, and moreover, if he were sober, would he have had the good sense to talk about this situation further, to ask why and what it meant, but the fact of the matter was that he _wasn't_ sober, and so fuck it, why not test it?

He was even more aggressive in his movements this time, loving the fact that Dave felt weirdly warm, but still almost begging the man to become disgusted and throw him. His right hand was twisted up in the hair at the base of Dave's neck while his left grabbed the man's shoulder. He was straddling the leg that was closest to his with his own, and perhaps most importantly, his lips were back on Dave's. After just a second of hesitation, Dave began kissing him back, and even lightly rested a hand on Karkat's hip. Karkat's heart started to pound; he took Dave's movements as encouragement and slipped his tongue into Dave's mouth, just for a second touching his canines, before biting at his lower lip. He tasted like weed, fire, and popcorn, which was neither nice nor surprising, but somehow, it was still kinda hot. Dave, actually, was just kinda hot. Karkat had always found him attractive, but, fuck, somehow all the fighting (and now, all the making out) had amplified it.

Karkat felt like he was probably a bad person. Was this hatefucking or normal fucking? Was he taking advantage of the situation? Was he going to allow this to go any further? Was Dave?

He felt a hand at his chest and instinctively pulled back. Upon reopening his eyes, he remembered that one of them was still swelling, and now he was making out with the fuckface who punched him. Kankri, he thought, would call this "loose morals," or "poor decision making," or something.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

Dave couldn't seem to find an answer, but his beautiful red eyes betrayed some fear, and maybe even a bit of arousal. Karkat resisted the urge to smirk as he remembered his victory over the shades.

He continued to stare in silence, and Karkat relented, letting go of his grip on the man and pulling away completely. He was surprised he got as far as he did, really, before Dave backed out, but he knew when to stop pushing. In his periphery, he saw Dave moving, and assumed he was leaving again. He tried to fake some apathy, some disinterest, but he was feeling a little hurt. Dave was allowed to not be into guys, of course, but it would've been a lot easier had he been. Karkat frowned to himself.

Given this, he was rather surprised when he found himself pinned on his back, arms over his head, in a very similar position to the one he'd been in maybe an hour or so ago, but with a very different connotation.

Dave was breathing kind of heavy. "I didn't ask you to stop."

Karkat's breath caught, stunned by the turn of events. Dave was very, very close, and Karkat was very, very turned on. Still, the prominent paranoid part of him wouldn't let it go. "You're kinda fucked up right now," Karkat remarked, testing Dave's grip on his wrists and his intentions. Yes, this was exactly like the Hallway Brawl, and that should not have turned Karkat on as much as it did. To add to the aggressive atmosphere, Dave was unrelenting, and with his new biceps, way, way stronger than Karkat. The shorter man continued, "We probably shouldn't—"

"Yeah," Dave interrupted, "we probably shouldn't."

And with that, Dave ducked down and started sucking on Karkat's neck. Fuck anyone who has ever said hickeys are for high school—that shit left him breathless and felt amazing. So amazing, in fact, that Karkat let out a little whimper as he arched his back, causing Dave to back away again. Karkat frowned at him, feeling unsatisfied.

"That was fucking adorable," he replied, startling Karkat. "Shit, I forgot how..."

Yes, Dave had called Karkat cute before. Back in Ohio, comments like that were not all that uncommon. Though it wasn't always a compliment—it was usually the inciting incident to a fight, as a matter of fact, but there, fighting had been a lot different. Fights were fought in words and winding nonsense, and sometimes, they were even fun.

Still, Karkat swore he saw Dave's cheeks just start to go red before the man went back for his neck. He was about to angrily refute the claim, as he would have back home, but his voice got stuck in his throat when Dave found a particularly sensitive spot by Karkat's collarbone. The complaint manifested itself in a low moan, which he noticed sent the smallest tremble through Dave's body.

There was a hand with long, delicate fingers at his hips in an instant, pulling up at the fabric of Karkat's shirt. He arched his back higher in order to let Dave continue pushing it, reveling in the feeling of fingers tracing their way up his sides, and found himself asking in a not-so-steady voice, "How far are you planning on going?"

Dave muttered into his neck his only answer: "I dunno."

This was not exactly sufficient, but not unsatisfying, either, as it meant there were no imminent plans to stop. Karkat didn't push it, but he still had another question, and he was really fucking bad at just keeping his mouth shut. "Why are you—"

"What, you want me to stop?" Dave growled into his ear, as he gave one final yank on the shirt, discarding it on the ground and sending a surprised jolt through Karkat that definitely went right to his crotch.

"No, I just—"

"Then shut the fuck up."

Dave went back down, this time going for Karkat's lips, likely in an effort to make sure he stayed quiet. Karkat eagerly returned the kiss, for once not minding being silenced and told what to do. He let his hand trail down to Dave's hipbones, pulling at his hem as Strider had done to him. In an instant, Dave was sat back again, this time removing his own shirt.

Karkat wasn't particularly big on muscles or anything, but fuck, could he appreciate Dave's. They weren't huge and bulky, but they sure were defined, his arms in particular. Karkat was an out-of-shape skeleton himself (skinny-fat, a doctor told him once), and couldn't help but feel some jealously mixed with his admiration. He realized, as he gazed, that the lights were still on, meaning that Dave could see his body as well as he could see Dave's. He flushed for a second, but it wasn't long before Dave was covering him once again.

Now both shirtless, Karkat couldn't help but savor the feeling of skin-on-skin contact and fought his desire to move for Dave's pants. His own were getting a bit tight, but he didn't want to go too quick and scare him. However, it didn't seem to matter—Dave was working the button on Karkat's jeans, exciting Karkat, but that was as far as he got before freezing.

He pulled back from the kiss, a confused look on his face, like he wasn't quite sure how he got into this predicament, or at the very least, didn't know how to continue. Karkat rolled his eyes and pushed at his chest. "Roll over," he demanded, knowing he didn't have the strength to overpower him like he would've preferred.

Dave nodded after a second, pulling himself the rest of the way off of Karkat and laying down beside him, where he was before. Karkat playfully muttered something about him being an amateur, but Dave didn't seem to notice.

After regaining control and straddling Strider, Karkat asked, "You want me to continue?"

Dave groaned. "Don't phrase it like that." He looked very, very embarrassed, with cheeks red and eyebrows furrowed. His palms went up over his eyes and it was clear he wasn't sure what to do without his shades.

Karkat found himself enjoying Strider's familiar awkwardness. "Like what? Use your words, Strider. Someone paid for you to go to school, once upon a time," he teased, wiggling his hips, and oh yes—

Dave let out an even longer groan, interrupting Karkat's discovery. "Like..." he trailed off. "Like I _want_ it."

"But you do," Karkat said, assuring himself more than anything. "That's the whole point, dumbfuck."

Dave ruefully conceded with a hiss, "I guess."

Karkat smiled, and put a hand on the center of Dave's chest, mostly looking for an excuse to touch his torso. "You've got to say it."

"No."

"How will I know it's okay?"

"It's okay," Dave growled, hands still rubbing his face. As shy as he was being, it was clear to Karkat, who was straddling him (and loving seeing him like this), that he wasn't exactly hating what was going on.

"What's okay?" he whispered, persisting.

Dave threw his arms to his sides dramatically. "You're making me softer by the second, Vantas."

Karkat chuckled humorlessly, knowing for a fact that this was a lie, and leaned up a bit to nip at Dave's neck, enjoying every second. With the hand he'd had on the other man's chest, he reached between their bodies and found the little circle of metal he was looking for, then deftly undid it, followed shortly thereafter by the zipper. He did the latter movement very, very slowly, half to tease Dave and half to give him time to think it over.

"You're the fucking worst."

That sounded like approval enough to Karkat, who then quickly reached for the bulge hidden away in Strider's boxers, and—

"Wow."

"Shut the _fuck_ up," Dave growled, apparently not caring that he was being offered a compliment.

Karkat listened. He may have had his hand down his former best friend's pants, but he wasn't sure that gave him permission to comment on anything he may have found, even if it would've been a really, really good comment, and even if he'd already seen it before.

Dave made a low whining noise in reaction to the stillness, but Karkat once again found a question eating at him that he had to have answered before he moved any more. "Are we just doing this because we're high?"

"Yeah," Dave answered shortly, and Karkat believed him, despite the fact that he kinda felt very sober at the moment.

That was for the best, he was sure. "Okay," he said, nodding, mostly to convince himself that that really was the best answer to the question.

He moved his hand off for just a second to sit up and pull at Dave's jeans more, hoping to get them out of the way. Dave helped as much as he could, trying to expedite the process.

"Wait," Karkat interrupted again before the job was done. "I know you haven't said anything indicative of just how far this is going to go yet, but do you have lube? We're not doing shit with lotion or some other dumbass substitute. It's too damn clichéd and I won't—"

Dave jumped in, "I know I'm not one to tell someone to shut up, but if you don't stop talking right in this goddamn moment—"

"Do you have lube?"

A tense pause.

"Yeah. Nightstand." Talk about clichés.

"Okay," Karkat said. "We don't have to do that if you don't want to," he assured the other man, all of Kankri's lessons on consent ringing in the back of his head like the world's most annoying dinner bell, but instead of ringing for dinner, it rang for lectures.

Dave just silently nodded, then muttered, "_Please_ do something less awkward."

Without hesitation, Karkat closed the gap between them. Their bodies were flush against each other as their mouths moved once again, and as nice as the making out was, Karkat was going to take advantage of the permission he'd been given. Slowly, he reached his hands between them and went back to Dave's hips. He found himself struggling to keep a slow pace, wanting to move faster and just get to the goddamn point already. He let his hands take one quick pass at Strider's erection before moving them to the waistband of his boxers, impatiently tugging them down. He heard Dave's breath hitch as they moved, but neither broke the kiss.

Karkat's hand found itself pulling Dave fucking Strider's dick out, and for a moment, he was stunned, before he fell back into the moment. Dave moaned onto Karkat's lips, causing an egotistical smile.

Karkat murmured, "Since I've already blown you, would you consider letting me do that again?"

Dave took a moment before deciding aloud, "Yeah, I could consider that."

He let the handjob continue for a few moments more as his lips continued working on Dave, tongues coming into play just every once in a while, even though he was really, really impatient. Still, he was enjoying teasing Dave like this; he liked getting him all riled up. His face was totally flushed, and he was growing harder by the second, which, in turn, made Karkat uncomfortably hard in the jeans he was still wearing.

The hungry kiss kept on even as Karkat attempted to move the party to the edge of the bed. He began touching Dave's hips and toned legs in the right places, grabbing enough to make it clear where he intended for them to be. Karkat began slowly moving down Dave's body, pressing small kisses every few inches, hoping that it was coming off as sexy and not sappy. The biggest mistake he could make here, he was sure, was implying there was something more between them than an inebriated fuck or two, which really wasn't super hard when he remembered what a dick Dave'd been all weekend. It was significantly harder, if Karkat remembered correctly, the first time.

Eventually, he found himself kneeling on the floor, between Strider's legs, who was still laying with his back on the bed, pants now discarded. Karkat's hand continued to carefully stroke up and down his shaft, thumbing just slightly at what he thought he'd been taught in some health class was called the frenulum. Dave's dick twitched in response. Suddenly, a little ball of paranoid anxiety pooled at the base of his stomach. He'd done this before, yeah, but there was something that made him so nervous at the proposition of doing it again. The first time hadn't been like the other times he'd sucked guys off. He hadn't been able to decide what it was then, and he certainly couldn't now, but he knew it was different.

He let his face hover over Strider's dick for a few moments, stilling his hand and just rubbing the tip, causing Dave to moan out in a mix of pleasure and frustration. Karkat smirked, even laughed a little, when he finally did run his tongue up Dave's length, making him jump. He took just a second to be bothered by the fact that Strider wasn't sitting up and that his eyes were closed, but he let it slide; he wasn't exactly sure how eye contact would go over, anyway. Karkat kept his hand moving slowly at the bottom of Dave's shaft as he captured the tip between his lips, earning a hand desperately grabbing at his hair, and oh yes, all anxiety was gone—he was loving this.

"Fuck," Karkat heard Dave breathe out, and he hummed in response, because he'd had some good blowjobs in his life, okay? He knew how this shit worked; he knew that that felt good, and he already knew Dave liked it, since he'd blown him before. Still, Dave punctuated his approval by bucking his hips.

He continued moving his mouth down Dave's length, and then back up, still moving slowly enough to piss Dave off, before steadily gaining speed. Clearly, they were both loving every second of this, as evidenced by Strider's noises and ever-tightening grip, but Karkat couldn't help but feel distracted by the nagging in the back of his head; he'd had sex with a lot of people in the last few years, but it'd never been quite like this. Fuck, even the last time he'd blown Dave hadn't been quite like this —he'd still liked Dave then, after all. In some ways, this felt less intense than when he'd been with people he'd more recently enjoyed, but fuck, in other ways, this was making him far hornier. The animosity from earlier in the day was still hanging around, almost energizing the air in a way he was unfamiliar with. Since there was little trust between them, there was something about this intimate act that felt all the more intimate.

Karkat removed his mouth, substituting a slow hand, when he was suddenly brought back to attention with a load moan from Dave. "Don't you fucking dare cum yet, assmunch," Karkat growled out in response, genuinely annoyed. Sure, the kid wasn't that experienced, but Jesus Christ, it hadn't even been that long. Though, he supposed, he _was_ a bit flattered.

Dave groaned a loud complaint in response, releasing Karkat's hair and sitting up as the enthusiastic blowjob turned into a frustratingly gentle handjob. "Don't flatter yourself," he managed to weakly bite.

Karkat kept teasing the sweet spot where shaft met head, if only to watch Dave's face twitch as he tried to remain stoic. "Do you want it to be over that quickly?"

Dave's eyes met Karkat's with a clear understanding. Between that and the question about the lube, it was clear Karkat was implying. "I guess that depends," he managed.

"I'm assuming you have a preference on the situation," Karkat said a little too aggressively, pausing momentarily. He vastly preferred to top, though it wasn't always easy to find a partner that didn't immediately assume otherwise because of his short stature. He had a feeling he knew where Dave "No Homo" Strider fell on the issue.

"Well," Dave said, right hand wringing at the back of his neck, face flushing. "If we're trying new things…"

Karkat's eyes narrowed, curious, and almost daring Dave to finish that thought.

"Look," he continued, "you've caught me at a moment when I'm too high to care, and just curious to consider trying, and…"

If there was more to that statement, Karkat missed it. He made an overly eager grab at the nightstand, too short at this angle to really see into it. Still, rather quickly, he was able to find what he was looking for. He looked to the bottle and then to Dave.

The other man still appeared rather uncomfortable, which Karkat was sympathetic to. His first time had not exactly been the stuff of fantasies—the overeager (and perhaps even over-aged) man he'd been with hadn't been exactly that worried about Karkat's comfort. There was lube, sure, but not a lot of fragility.

"How little can you make that suck?" Dave asked.

"As little as possible?" Karkat said, which was not exactly reassuring. "It's not going to feel great at first, but it does eventually."

Dave considered that, looking for comfort in the eyes of the man between his knees. Though he didn't want him to worry like this, it would be untruthful to say that Karkat wasn't enjoying this return to vulnerability and awkwardness. Still, after a moment, Dave gave a timid nod before flopping back down onto the bed rather unceremoniously. "I guess we're doing this, then."

Karkat couldn't fucking help himself. "We're making this happen."

Where he expected a groan, he received a thumbs up thrust into the air. That was as close to verbal consent as he was going to get at this point.

Both of his hands were off of Dave as they worked on opening the bottle and applying a generous amount of lube to his left pointer finger, still being careful to not get any on the floor. When he was satisfied (and Dave seemed properly impatient), Karkat put his dry hand on top of Dave's leg, pushing it open a little more. Then, the same hand moved back to Dave's erection, hoping to mask this new and possibly uncomfortable feeling with something familiar.

"Relax," Karkat said, as gently as he could, as he tried to push past a very, very tight ring. He persisted as Dave attempted to do as he was told, and suddenly, he was a knuckle in, and then two.

"Not the biggest fan," Dave groaned.

Karkat tried not to roll his eyes, both hands pausing at their respective jobs. "Look, we can stop whenever you want, but—"

"I'm not a quitter, Vantas."

That time, he couldn't help but roll his eyes. He started moving his finger back and forth until Dave seemed to have gotten used to it, and then he added a second. That got a sharp gasp, and he probably should've warned Dave beforehand. Still, it seemed that he was serious about this—he was staying quite relaxed, relatively speaking.

As soon as Dave seemed ready for something bigger, of course, he realized his own fucking jeans were on, and he wasn't really sure what to do about it. His dry hand had the very important task of continuing to work on Dave's erection, and his other hand was not even a viable candidate.

Dave must've noticed Karkat's conundrum, likely because his pace had slowed, as asked, "What's wrong."

Karkat muttered, a little embarrassed, "My pants are still on."

There was a silence.

Dave sat up and Karkat removed his fingers in response, careful not to touch anything with that hand. Dave chewed on the inside of his cheek. "Stand."

With a raised eyebrow, Karkat obliged, awkwardly getting to his feet using only his right hand and Dave's left thigh for support.

"Gotta do everything myself around here," Strider said in what must've been a joke, seeing as he'd done very little. He finished the job he'd started earlier, unzipping and sliding down Karkat's pants and boxers, revealing an erection of his own.

Dave just sort of stared at it, once again clearly unsure of what to do. He settled for dropping back down on the bed, earning yet another eye roll. Karkat figured he could let Strider get away with not touching him, knowing what he was about to do, and all. He finished kicking off his pants and reached back down, remaining standing but returning to his previous job(s). Strider had his arm over his face, obscuring all expression.

Soon enough, Karkat had a question. "Are you ready?"

"You're probably a better judge of that than I am," Dave remarked.

"Just a 'yes' or 'no,'" Karkat prompted.

It took a moment, but he got a weak "yeah" in response. Nodding, he reached down for the lube and prepared himself, and when he was mollified, he put one hand at Dave's hip and hooked the other underneath his left knee, pulling it up to allow himself easier access. His angle was still a bit weird since Dave was a little low, but he made it work. He removed his hand from Strider's leg to line himself up, and then—

"_Fuuuuuuuuuuck_," the other man groaned out, and it took all that was in Karkat to not say something similar but in a much, much more satisfied way. Still, tightness all around him and the desire to move very, very strong, he willed himself still and waited.

Dave was gnawing at his cheek again, from what Karkat could tell from his half-hidden expression. His mouth opened, but his brain hadn't figured out what he wanted to say. A moment (a very, very long one, in Karkat's opinion) passed before he managed, "Slow."

Karkat took the instruction seriously, moving tortuously gently, but trying in earnest to get just a little deeper with every thrust. He was convinced that if he could find Dave's prostate, he could make this about ten times more enjoyable.

Another slow thrust, then another, and another, before Dave whimpered—_whimpered_—out, body growing more and more relaxed by the second, "Okay, faster."

Still not wanting to do anything too jarring, Karkat increased his speed little by little, letting himself feel so, so good, but still hoping in earnest that Dave was feeling (or would feel) the same. He removed one hand from Dave's hip, the still slightly-lubed hand, and put it back on his dick, thinking that if he wasn't going to hit the right spot, this at least would feel good, too. What little he could see of Dave's face seemed to show that that was, in fact, a great idea, but ultimately, he had little to worry about, because not too long after that, Dave's mouth popped open in shock, and a sound that sent a delightful shiver through Karkat escaped.

"What is _that_," Dave demanded. "Do that again."

And so Karkat did, again, and again, and again, stroking Dave in the same rhythm, and he was rewarded with more noises, each better than the last. At a certain volume, Dave must've realized that he was being loud, and his arm shifted from his eyes, which were still closed very tightly, to his mouth, muffling himself. Karkat grunted in disapproval and reached up with his hand that had been on the other man's hip, grabbing him by the wrist and forcing it away.

A surprised gasp was what he got in response, as well as a lifted chin, which Karkat misread as Dave still trying to hide. He figured out that he was wrong when he felt Dave's back arch under him, and his erection throb in his hand, and he was making beautiful noises, and he clenched, too, and suddenly Dave's cum was all over his own chest and barely-there abs. Karkat began moving faster than he had, feeling hotter and harder than ever before as he started at the erotic scene.

"Not in me," Dave breathed out, eyes still closed, voice still breathy.

Karkat obliged and pulled out, one hand still on Dave's wrist and other working on finishing himself, which perhaps wasn't quite as nice, but the orgasm that tore through his body and escaped his lips betrayed the fact that he'd still enjoyed himself very, very much.

Totally out of breath, Karkat let the moment hang before worrying about cleaning them up. For once, Strider's face looked calm and maybe even blissful, though he did pull at his arm a bit weakly, prompting Karkat to let go. He was forced to stand, since he couldn't use his other, newly-dirtied hand to steady himself, either. He slowly reached over to the Kleenexes on the nightstand and lazily wiped his hands off, and then Dave's chest. Not knowing where the fuck a wastebin may have been, he settled for kinda grossly putting the used tissue back on the nightstand.

He then moved and laid next to Dave, who was also breathing heavily, eyes shut once again. Karkat lazily put a hand on Strider's bare chest and noticed that they were both technically laying the wrong way, but it didn't seem to matter; the bed was huge. Still a bit delirious from orgasm, he let himself come back down slowly, savoring every second. The moment was wildly intimate, yet still a little awkward; he felt closer to Dave than he ever had, but also unsure of where they stood now. Above all, he felt so, so tired.

"Good?" he asked between large breaths, making sure to get that in before he passed out.

The other man nodded, arm back over his face. If any conflict was still there, Karkat was too exhausted to pursue seeing it.

He let his own eyes close, feeling how soft the comforter was underneath him, and how comfortable he was next to Strider, and how much more comfortable he'd be if he'd just get closer. He listened to his instincts, finding and holding Dave's arm, as he thought about how little sleep he'd gotten since early this morning when he'd left for California. He hadn't realized how tired he was until right now, because up until this second, he'd not felt so relaxed.

It's no surprise, then, that he was in a deep, peaceful sleep by the time Dave moved him.


	6. forgive myself?

Karkat woke up to a pillow hitting the back of his head, hard.

"What the fuck?!" he instinctively garbled back, despite barely being awake, face still buried in his own pillow. He may not have been keenly aware of his surroundings, but he was aware of the throbbing pain in his head, and it was beginning to wake him.

"You're a heavy sleeper, dude!" someone said in a voice that wasn't immediately familiar.

"Then let me fucking sleep, asshat," Karkat muttered back, speaking mostly to his sheets as he stuffed his face into them, pulling the comforter up around his body as he did so.

Another hard smack with a pillow, followed by, "You've got a plane to catch! Dave sent me to get you!"

Oh, yeah, right, Karkat was in California. This information forced him to raise his head slightly and look at exactly where he was and at who was hitting him repeatedly. The boy, whose identity had still yet to be determined, had a goofy ass grin on his face, pleased at his triumph. Karkat was in California, and Dave sent this boy to wake him, but that was all he really understood.

"Dave," he muttered aloud, staring at the walls, trying to make some connections.

"No, fuckface, I'm John!"

Karkat looked back at him, and okay, yes, that was John, Dave's friend, and they were in Dave's guest room, but he was pretty sure he hadn't fallen asleep here. He definitely remembered being in this room last night, and he remembered smoking last night, and he remembered that Dave had been there, and oh-ho-ho, shit, fuck, he fucked Dave last night, didn't he?

Memories started flooding back in a way that made Karkat blush and rebury his head. Shit, he fucked Strider. Shit. That was worse than a blow job. Karkat did not deserve to have friends.

Another hit.

"Would you fucking stop that?!" Karkat demanded, whipping his head up. "I'm awake!"

"Then sit the fuck up so I can leave you to get ready!" John suggested, laughing a bit. "I don't want to walk out and have you fall back to sleep."

Karkat begrudgingly obliged, glaring as he propped himself up on ass and arms. As the air hit his chest, he realized he was buck-ass-naked, and so did John. He tried to keep his face stoic.

"Put on some fucking clothes," John laughed. "And is that a hickey?"

Karkat's right hand immediately flew up to his neck, eyes bulging a bit and silently begging John to just fucking leave.

"Dave bring you home a girl last night?" John asked, still laughing but seemingly genuine, as if the possibility that maybe that hickey was from his friend wasn't even in the realm of possibility, which to John, Karkat guessed it wasn't.

"Where the fuck is Dave, anyway?" Karkat snapped, trying to change the subject.

John shrugged. "I dunno. He just told me he wouldn't be back in time to get you to the airport, so I figured I'd help a dude out, and—"

Well, that hurt. "Just go, already!" Karkat demanded.

"Okay, okay, but you asked," John relented, still smirking. "But be down in a few minutes. I was gonna toast us up some Pop-Tarts. Strawberry or cinnamon?"

"Cinnamon," Karkat answered after a moment, like holding his answer from John would do him any good.

John gave a nod, verbal acknowledgement, and left the room, shutting the door behind him and leaving Karkat to his thoughts.

Fuck, he fucked Dave last night. And now Dave wasn't here. Dave so wasn't here, in fact, that John was. If Karkat thought a blowjob messed up their friendship, this was sure to destroy it.

"Fuck," he muttered to himself. "Good fucking job, Vantas."

He slowly pulled himself up from the bed, specific memories coming back slowly. They'd gotten sort of high in the guest room (but not nearly as high as they were likely both pretending; not high enough to excuse fucking as an unintentional "it just sort of happened" kind of thing, in Karkat's opinion), but he'd followed Dave into his room after asking if he'd ever fucked John, which was enough to get him walking, but not enough to get him to tell Karkat to fuck off. With that in mind, Dave probably carried Karkat back to the guest room this morning. Karkat blushed at that a little, thoughts lost in a mix of how that was kind of sweet, but also, how he would've been very, very naked. Also, Dave would've moved him with the idea of leaving in mind; there was no reason to put him in another bed other than to make it look "normal" to John when he swung by to pick Karkat up.

"Fucking Strider and his goddamn insecurities," Karkat grumbled, moving to grab clothes from his backpack, which had been left on the floor, the large middle pocket wide open from his hunt for his weed the night prior. "Does a fucking impressive impression of a middle school girl, that's for sure." He found clean boxers and pants, put them on, and then stopped before he could get his shirt. "A goddamn shame he can't go to the eighth grade formal because none of the boys asked him out and he's too embarrassed to wear the dress his mother bought for him."

Eventually, he shut up long enough to finish getting ready the rest of the way, though not without a running internal monologue about how it was Strider's loss, trying to keep the nagging voice about what a terrible friend he was away.

He noticed that while he'd been returned to the guest room, the asshole hadn't returned the clothes he'd been wearing. Groaning, Karkat left the room, backpack in hand, and went down the hallway to Dave's room, passing the portrait of Dirk and the spot of the Hallway Brawl—his injured eye gave a little twitch in response. He slowed when he got nearer to the door, and surprisingly nervous, he gave the doorknob a tentative turn.

It was clear rather immediately to Karkat that Dave hadn't returned to his room after moving him. Not only was Karkat's shirt on one side of the bed and his pants on the other, as well as the outfit Dave'd been wearing, but the bottle of lube was still on the floor, and joints were still on either nightstand, coupled with gross, crumpled Kleenex. Eyeing up Dave's discarded shirt, which was under his own, Karkat figured that Strider had likely put on something new before leaving. That gave Karkat a weird mental image of a fully-clothed Dave carrying a small, naked Karkat bridal style down the hallway.

He grimaced.

As he gathered his own clothes up from the ground, tucking them under his arm, he made the conscious decision to leave all the other evidence from last night out. Though he was convinced he was the worst friend a guy could have (as he often was), he wasn't sure he wanted to let Strider off the hook that easily, either. This was an incident he already knew he'd be torturing himself over for months, and there was no reason that Dave should get the benefit of pretending it never happened.

And so, rather confident that this was the death of his civil relationship with Strider, anyway, he left the scene intact for the other man to clean up later.

…

"So the hickeys I get," John said as soon as Karkat stepped into the kitchen, "but what's up with the black eye?"

Karkat grumbled as he claimed the plate of cinnamon Pop-Tarts that was laying on the counter for himself, "None of your fucking business, Guy Fieri."

John's head went back with laughter as he brought his hand up to run it through his hair, almost as if to assure himself that he didn't have Fieri's nightmarish hair. "Seriously, though," he said when his laughing subsided. "What happened?"

. Karkat stared blankly back at John, nostrils flaring just a bit. He was teetering between telling him the truth, just pissed enough at Dave to rat him out, but he also really, really didn't want to give John the satisfaction of letting him in. He settled with showing as much of one of his Pop-Tarts into his mouth as he could.

"Fuck off," he garbled out, spitting crumbs onto the counter.

John grimaced in disgust, staring at the mess and then at Karkat. "Gross, dude."

Karkat allowed himself to finish chewing, but still said with a full mouth, "Don't they have a full fucking cleaning staff or something, anyway?

John's frown deepened. "I mean, technically, yeah, but that doesn't mean it's okay to just make a big gross mess for them."

"They're being paid to clean," Karkat snapped, only really frustrated by the fact that yes, the Strider's did indeed have some sort of wait staff.

"Yeah, but they're still people, asshole," John said, turning around to get a paper towel from new the sink. "Like, in school, just because there were janitors doesn't mean you just left your milk cartons and apple juice boxes on the ground."

Karkat grumbled and snatched the paper towel from John, opting to clean the mess himself, knowing he looked like a jackass.

As John watched him clean, he remarked, "As for the black eye, I'm just gonna pretend you're really kinky."

"John, is this line of questioning coming because you're jealous of my black eye and want one, yourself?" Karkat asked. "If so, that can be arranged."

John chuckled and let the topic die. Karkat threw his paper towel at him, anyway.

…

After a mostly quiet drive to the airport in John's own convertible (rich assholes), Karkat got his plane ticket, at which point John, who'd been very insistent about staying at Karkat's side, couldn't go any farther. Karkat gave a little annoyed wave at him as they stepped out of line, which the man returned with an equally little smile.

"Karkat," John said, waiting until the exact moment Karkat turned his back to leave for security. Cinematic.

He gritted his teeth and rolled his eyes, but spun back and returned his attention. "What?" he couldn't help but snap.

"I don't know what happened last night," John said, looking pointedly into Karkat's swollen eye, "but you should text Dave before your flight takes off. He probably wants to apologize."

Karkat laughed. "Oh, I'm sorry!" he said loudly, earning a glance or two from people walking nearby. "Silly me! I misinterpreted him leaving before I woke up this morning as him not wanting to see me, let alone speak to me! How ridiculous of me; I should've known he wanted to talk!"

John took a step forward, likely trying to encourage Karkat to keep his voice down. "You know… He's, like, really awkward, and he probably didn't know how to handle whatever happened with you guys."

"Jesus Christ, John," Karkat yelled, throwing his hands up in the air, the right one gripping his new plane ticket tightly enough to crumple the middle. "I can't help the fact that he needs someone to hold his hands and walk him through life, avoiding all the insufferable and awkward parts! I'm not his babysitter, and you shouldn't be, either,"

John put his own hands up in surrender. "Okay, well, I told him to text you, too, so as long as one of you breaks…" he trailed off.

"Why the fuck do you even care, John?" Karkat asked. There were definitely a few sets of eyes on him now, including those of children, and at least one teenager had obviously just stopped to watch, but Karkat seemed rather oblivious. "Do you get off on conflict resolution? Are you trying to build up a resume for when you apply to be the guidance counsellor at Sunshine and Fucking Disney Movies Elementary?"

John laughed and shrugged. "No, Dave was just super mopey when he called this morning. He's really annoying when he's mopey."

Karkat's swollen eye twitched a bit, if possible. _Dave_ was mopey? Goddamn, was sleeping with Karkat really the worst, most offensive thing that could've happened to him? For fuck's sake, Karkat gave him opportunity upon opportunity to back out, which he clearly didn't want to do, so if Dave was going to be mopey, it was his own damn fault.

"What's your last name?" Karkat demanded.

"Uh…" John responded, confused. "Egbert?"

"Well listen up, Egbert," Karkat snapped, taking a step forward. "I need to get on a plane that's going to take me five hours away from this hellhole. Strider made it clear to me from the second I arrived that I was of no interest to him, and therefore, he and his goddamn mopiness are none of my concern. I'm gonna get as far away as I can from that asshole, and I suggest you do the same. Do not. Be. A babysitter."

"Okay, Karkat," John sighed, shaking his head a little. "But if you don't text him soon, I think you know both of you're gonna be too weird to talk again."

"Good," Karkat snipped. "Goodbye, Egbert."

"See ya," John responded, smiling, like a friendly asshole.

"You won't!" Karkat insisted, turning his back and walking on, pissed off at Egbert's smugness. "What a dickhead," he grumbled to himself.

As he made his way to security, he fished into his pocket, hands tense, and grabbed his phone. He sent an angry text to the first person he could think to bitch to. He knew Terezi was likely sleeping, but as another former member of the shitfest that was movie night, she would be sure to understand his frustrations.

_SO I SPEND THE WEEKEND IN CALIFORNIA, WHERE THE SUN IS CONSTANTLY ANGRY AT EVERYONE FOR BEING BLOWHARD PIECES OF SHIT, AND ALL I GOT WAS A GODDAMN BLACK EYE._

He shoved his phone back and traded it for his wallet, getting his ID ready to go through security.

…

Karkat made it through security, on and off the tram, and to his terminal with little fanfare. As he sat down at the gate, he once again removed his phone from his pocket. He thought long and hard about whether or not to text Dave—the biggest thing stopping him, perhaps, was the fact that John had told him he should. This reason was followed by the fact that he'd _fucked his ex-best friend who found it horrific enough to run away from his own damn house_.

He wasn't even sure what to say to Strider. He was just self-loathing enough, in general, to blame himself for the whole thing and apologize for making everything awful, but he was still pissed off enough (and hurt enough, maybe) to tear him a new one so large it formed its own gravitational pull massive enough to destroy Strider and his fragile ego.

Before he had the chance to decide whether or not he'd take a large bite of the metaphorical bullet, his phone lit up with a message from another blonde-haired nuisance.

_T__he last thing that I want is to sound emotionally needy, or compromised in any other way,_ the message began, _so know that I'm not asking about this because I give anything that could resemble either a shit or a fuck._

Karkat stared at the screen. He and Rose were friends because they ran in the same group, sure, but they never really talked one-on-one. _ASKING ABOUT WHAT?_

_Did my brother say anything about me this weekend?_

_WHICH BROTHER?_ Karkat responded, knowing full well which brother, but feeling awkward. Yes, Rose had come up a few times.

_Oh, excuse me, I should be more descriptive: the one you went across the country to see; the one I actually consider to be my brother._

_ OH, THAT BROTHER._

_ Yes, that brother. So?_

_ I SUPPOSE YOU CAME UP ONCE OR TWICE._

_ Would you mind so generously sharing the context of the conversation I may have come up in once or twice?_

Yeah, he kind of did mind sharing. The first time was to use her not moving as a weapon against the slightly older twin, and the other time was a lazy attempt on Dave's behalf to find out how she was doing.

Karkat settled on responding with _YOU'RE SOUNDING EMOTIONALLY NEEDY._

It took longer than the last few messages for her to respond, and before she did, the gate agents called to begin boarding. Too busy with getting his ticket ready, handing it over, getting on the plane, and putting his bags into the overhead compartment (chewing the inside of his lip the whole time, flickering between anger and anxiety), he didn't notice he had a few texts until he sat down.

_DO3S TH3 BRU1S3 4T L34ST M4K3 YOU LOOK L1K3 4 COOLK1D TOO? _was first, and not as important as the other new message.

_Then let me rephrase: Did he say anything that may have hinted as to why he's had a sudden change of heart regarding visiting Ohio? He sent me a photo of a plane ticket with his name on it, accompanied by a pink Smuppet that better have only been included for his sick love of irony and not because it will be coming with him in the form of a gift. _

Karkat felt his brow knit together in astonishment and pure, unadulterated anger. He must've made some noise that made the woman in the aisle, who had been contemplating sitting next to him, opt to keep moving further down the plane.

Before he got time to fully process this information, Rose sent two follow-up texts.

_Have you seen him today? I think he may have sent that photo from Dirk's office, which I assume would make sense, since Dirk has control of all the new Strider money. _

_What on earth happened this weekend?_

He wasn't really sure anymore. His phone buzzed once again, and then once more, and then again, and again, this time lighting up with a name he hadn't seen in months: "GARBAGE LORD OF THE TRASH FLIES."

_next time dont waste your bros money_

_ill come to ohio_

_last night didnt suck btw_

_bros 5 lyf_

It was at this point that a flight attendant reminded Karkat that his phone needed to be in airplane mode. His face was bewildered when he looked at her, but she kept smiling and waiting for him to show her that he complied.

And so he did, giving himself five hours to freak the fuck out.

* * *

**A/N: Oh look, after two years, it's over. Why/how did six chapters take two years? Your guess is as good as mine, my dude.  
**

**Anyway, I hope you liked it. It was originally only supposed to clock in at four or so chapters, as its basis was the song "Diplomat's Son" by Vampire Weekend (lol it was a songfic the whoooole tiiiiiime), but I kept having more and more ideas, and now it barely resembles what it was supposed to.**

**Thanks for hanging in there.**


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